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Emma (519 KP) rated Last Bus to Coffeeville in Books

Oct 3, 2019

This book was chosen for my book club read. I tried really,really hard to get through it,and had high hopes for it,considering it was compared to the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry in its blurb. However I failed to finish it,and fail to see how it is similar to Rachel Joyce's book.
Reading the blurb it had a lot of promise, but for me failed to deliver, and i didnt even manage to get to the part where the road trip begins. In my opinion getting to page 185, i had expected the story to have gone somewhere but with it not even having set off yet I decided to call it a day.
The author had some very good ideas of what he wanted to write, and some bits I did enjoy, I just felt there was too much going back and forth, and the characters had too big back stories to keep me interested. Which is a shame because i would have liked to have read more about Bob.
I wanted to give the book two out of ten, with me not finishing it. But because of the bits i did enjoy ive given it a four.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated Proxima (2019) in Movies

Aug 3, 2020

Proxima (2019)

2019 | Drama, International

6.0

(1 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Slightly arty space drama with Eva Green. A female engineer is delighted to be selected for a mission to help prepare for the first manned landing on Mars, but does not anticipate the strain this will place on her relationship with her daughter.

Not really a science fiction film in any genuine sense of the word, but one which combines a very realistic portrayal of life as an astronaut in training with an examination of what it means to go off into space leaving your children behind. Doesn't quite ring correctly on a number of levels: we are invited to dislike the American mission commander, who is a chauvinist alpha-male in some ways, but on the other hand the film is about the extra difficulties of being a mum on the way to orbit. Mmm, I don't know - is it really that different from being a father and going off into space? A definite sense of maternity being idealised - a key sequence sees Green's character breaking mission protocols in a pretty major way just to keep a promise to her daughter. (Then again I'm neither a woman or a parent.) A bit of a shame as the film is engaging and well-played, but it's much more about Mas than Mars.